Principal Engineer (CoinDesk Data Engineering)

TL;DR

Principal Engineer (CoinDesk Data Engineering): Develop and champion a cohesive technical roadmap for high-performance data infrastructure powering real-time crypto market data and indices with an accent on resilient systems, high-throughput APIs, and WebSocket streaming. Focus on architecting scalable distributed systems, tackling cross-team challenges like data resiliency and uptime, and elevating engineering practices through mentorship and cross-cutting improvements.

Location: London. Right to work in the UK required.

Company

Institutionally focused global digital asset platform providing regulated exchange, indices, market data, and media services including CoinDesk.

What you will do

• Drive technical evolution by developing a long-term roadmap for internal/external services towards unified scalable architecture.
• Lead design of resilient, high-throughput systems setting standards for security and future development.
• Act as technical lead for complex challenges like data resiliency, uptime, and infrastructure evolution without interruptions.
• Mentor senior engineers on architectural patterns, trade-offs, and best practices.
• Lead improvements in observability, developer tooling, and testing strategies across engineering.

Requirements

• Right to work in the UK.
• 8+ years backend development with principal-level leadership on multiple services.
• Deep experience designing/operating large-scale distributed systems with REST APIs, WebSockets, message queues (Kafka/RabbitMQ).
• High availability/disaster recovery for 24/7 financial systems.
• Proficiency in Node.js or Golang, multiple languages in production.
• Modern databases (Redis, PostgreSQL): schema design, optimization for high-throughput.
• DevSecOps: CI/CD, IaC, observability (monitoring, logging, tracing).
• Comprehensive testing strategies and strong stakeholder influence.

Nice to have

• Cloud architecture (Azure, GCP).
• Blockchain/cryptocurrencies knowledge.
• Financial markets/trading experience.
• Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Observability tools (Prometheus, DataDog, Jaeger, OpenTelemetry).
• Data privacy (GDPR/CCPA) compliance.